The Right Time
by Kuroi-cho-tsuki-shiro
Summary: When Byakuya is sent on a mission to the world of the living, Hisana must face her greatest challenge yet: his family. Byakuya x Hisana 49
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note: I'm so sorry! For the first time, I got behind with uploading! I was at London Comic Con all weekend. I know that's not an excuse, but it was very distracting. :p**_

_**This is a story of Hisana and Byakuya. For previous stories in this sequence, please see my profile and look for the numbers at the end of each story summary.**_

_**With thanks to everyone who is reading and reviewing.**_

_**Byakuya has brought Hisana to live in his house…..**_

True to his word, Byakuya did not try to kiss her again or take her hand or rest his own hand on her shoulder. But he did spend every hour of the day that he was not at the barracks in her company. Summer passed like a dream. Life within the walls of the mansion was simplicity itself and she wanted for nothing, waking each day to the changing colours in the garden. She had time to waste and time to think. Time indeed to start believing that she wasn't dreaming. The cracks in this perfect picture did not break it apart, but they made it more real for her: the servants who had taken a dislike to her, the grandfather whom Byakuya would not let her see, the other captains who treated her with a mixture of curiosity and pity. Somehow, she didn't mind. They were people and she had never before been surrounded by people: people who knew her or at least knew a little of her. As she became real to them, she began to believe that they too were real: parts and pieces of her new life.

Then the winter came and the trees in the garden were black lines against the snow, like strokes of ink on a white page. Byakuya would read to her long into the evenings and she often fell asleep to the sound of his voice and the gentle flickering of the firelight.

Then, one night, after the sun had set, but before he had returned home, she had just lit the fire and a voice called to her from behind the screen door, which she did not recognise at once:

"Lady Hisana. May we speak with you?"

"Yes." She stood up from where she had been reading on the bed and smoothed down the silk kimono, as the door slid back, revealing the figures of two men. The first, the one who had spoken, she recognised at once as Captain Ukitake. He entered with a nod of respect. The second was an older man whom she only knew when he stepped into the light: Byakuya's grandfather. "What's wrong?" she asked. His eyebrows lifted as if she had spoken to hastily for his tastes, but Ukitake answered:

"Byakuya Kuchiki entered the world of the living today. Last year there was an – incident – that resulted in the loss of the captain of Sixth Division and, this morning, the hollow that was involved was identified in the real world. Kuchiki has taken a detachment to apprehend it."

"What – what does that mean?"

"It means that he will be gone for a few days. He was unable to return here so he asked me to let you know."

"Thank you," she managed with a bow. Ukitake's face softened:

"You mustn't worry, Hisana-_san. _He is strong and his skills in combat are unmatched amongst the _Gotei _Thirteen."

"Thank you."

Ukitake stepped towards the door, but the older man remained, his grey eyes fixed on Hisana.

"Are we done here?" asked Ukitake.

"You are done here," answered Ginrei Kuchiki. Ukitake bristled:

"I see. Then I will bid you both good night."

He swept out of the room, leaving Hisana alone, for the first time, with the only man she really feared anymore. He stood there, staring at her, and then he said one word:

"Leave."

She stared back. "You have outstayed your welcome," he said: "If you wish to take some of these – things – with you, then do so." He gestured at the room, the books and the clothes: "Take them, wherever it is that you are going. I will give you one day to gather your belongings."

"I have nowhere to go."

"That is no concern of mine. You have poisoned my grandson's mind. For that, I will not forgive you."

He left her then, standing in the firelight, the brightness having passed from the day.


	2. Chapter 2

Hisana spread out the papers around her and stared at the words. Byakuya had taught her the art of calligraphy and dictated the poems she had written. In neither of her lifetimes, up until this point, had she ever created something beautiful. The lettering was hers though. The clothes, the books: she could leave them behind, but not the poems. She had meant to pack, but somehow she had wound up here, kneeling in a pile of papers, sifting through memories of sunny afternoons. That was how he found her. "Are you ready?" the old man asked. He could see that she was not and his cane thundered on the wooden floor as he approached. He grunted as he laid eyes on the calligraphy: "My grandson has a love of this kind of writing."

"It occurs to me that, if I leave and offer him no explanation, I will hurt him greatly. Yet if I tell him you required me to go, then, with all due respects, I may shame you, Sir."

"I have every intention of telling him the truth," he said gruffly.

"He will come after me."

"You are insolent, Child."

"I'm realistic."

"Insolent to think that you mean so much to him."

"With all respect, are you blind, Sir?"

Ginrei snarled, took her by the arm and jerked her to her feet so that she staggered:

"Get out of my house!"

"Where should I go?"

"Anywhere. Away from here. Back to Rukongai."

"He will come after me."

"If he does, he will break with this family." She looked up for the first time as he continued: "Byakuya is the last of a pure bloodline. His strength, his _reiatsu, _his very being are bequeathed to him by this family and, if you believe I would allow this line to be sullied by a human soul, you are sorely mistaken, Girl." She shook him off and snatched up a handful of the papers on the floor, flinging them at the old man as if her anger could change his mind:

"He's your family! Why can't you let him choose?"

"He shall. He'll choose between you and us."

"And if he chooses me?"

He laughed unpleasantly:

"Why would he? What can you offer him?" She didn't answer. She knew that he loved her. It was a strange thing, but it had given her the strength to keep living and start believing in this world beyond Rukongai. Yet she knew too that she had nothing to give him in return: not even the affection he showed so freely. She felt so cold sometimes, as if she was staring at the world through sheets of glass. "What do you say?" asked the old man.

She stepped past him and she didn't look back.

Outside, the garden was covered in a crisp new layer of snow. She had little to protect her from the cold save for a fur stole she had flung over her shoulders. Had she known she would be leaving for sure, she might have planned better, but, as it was, she was forced to pick her way carefully through the icing sugar garden to the gates of the mansion.

The street outside was covered with a thin sheen of ice and frost glittered in the trees. She began the long walk towards the gates of the _sereitei, _but before she reached the end of the road, she stopped.

She couldn't go back.

It wasn't even that she didn't want to, but, dressed in the fine linens and furs Byakuya had bought for her, she would stand out a mile in a Rukongai street. She guessed that she would be attacked within inches of the checkpoint if she attempted to re-enter Seventy-ninth dressed like this.

She glanced around her: _shinigami, _servants and messengers. Was there anyone she could ask? Anyone she could turn to? They weren't questions she was used to asking herself.

She settled on the one man she knew Byakuya trusted.


	3. Chapter 3

The barracks of Thirteenth Division were in a state of chaos when she arrived. The _shinigami _no longer frightened her, but she did flatten herself against a nearby wall when twelve passed her at a sprint. There was no-one guarding the main gate and everyone inside seemed to be in a hurry, trying to get somewhere, find someone. They had no time for her questions, so it was sheer luck when she turned a corner and, quite literally, collided with Ukitake. He reached out a hand to steady her:

"Hisana!"

"Sorry!"

"Why are you here?" He was flanked by a guard of six _shinigami _who halted as soon as he did. Hisana bowed:

"I'm sorry. I meant to ask you" –

"Did you know?"

"Know what?"

He stared at her, then shook his head:

"I apologise, Hisana-_san. _I thought perhaps you had sensed" –

"Sensed what?"

"We lost all contact with Sixth Division just over an hour ago."

She felt as if an icy spear had passed straight through her, pinning her to the spot. She tried desperately to realign the words to mean anything but what she understood by them. And she didn't even notice when Ukitake laid his hands gently on her shoulders: "It would be best for you if you returned home. I will send a messenger to the house as soon as I have news" –

"No!"

Several of the _shinigami _bristled to hear their captain addressed so and Ukitake took his hands back as if stung. "I mean, I can't go back," she said desperately: "Kuchiki-_sensei _told me to leave, you see. I can't go back to Rukongai, but I can't ask Byakuya-_sama _to choose me over his family and I just meant to ask you – I just meant to ask" – Her words broke apart. She covered her face with her hands and started to cry. Beyond the stinging in her eyes and the sound of her sobbing, the men's silence was a terrible thing. At last, she heard Ukitake ask one of the others to accompany her to his appartments. She felt an arm about her shoulders, guiding her.


	4. Chapter 4

Ukitake returned to his quarters in the late afternoon to find Hisana on the terrace overlooking the lake. She had left the fur stole inside. The fine kimono framed every angle of her body and, in this light, she seemed exquisitely fragile. Her hair was unkempt, falling into her eyes. It was, he thought, just possible that she had no idea how beautiful she was.

"Come inside. It's cold," he said. She started, turned towards him briefly, then returned her eyes to the water. "Come inside, Hisana. We can talk things through."

"I have nothing to say. I don't want to be – me." He stood very still, waiting to see if she would say more, and when she didn't, he whispered:

"You cannot change where you come from."

"No. I want to be stronger. I want to be braver. I want to be kinder."

Ukitake frowned:

"I will talk to Kuchiki-_sensei. _He will see reason."

"No. It's me. That's all. I'm the one that always walks away. In Rukongai, it was the same. Whenever I was scared, I'd leave and start again somewhere else. I thought everything had changed, but it's the same. I'm the same. He asked me to leave and I left." She turned to look at the white-haired man standing in the doorway. That sense of looking at her world through a pane of glass had returned. This time, she let it envelope her. She was not a part of Ukitake's world; not a part of Byakuya's. That way, his answer to her next question would hurt her less: "He's not coming back, is he?"

Ukitake blinked:

"Hisana" –

"If it was the other way around, he would weep for me."

"A person's compassion is not measured by the tears they cry," he said, frowning: "My division are leaving tonight for the world of the living. If we can find him, we will."

"I'll be gone by then," she said, and she stepped past him, back into the house. He stared after her, then leant against the railings of the terrace and furrowed his brow at the moon:

"Where are you going to go?"

"Back to Rukongai. One way or another," she said from inside: "I came here for a change of clothes."

"I thought you weren't going to walk away again."

There was a moment's silence and then she reappeared, silhouetted against the light from inside:

"That's not what I said. I only said that I do always do. That's the kind of person I am."

"Is that what you want?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Still, I'd like to know. What do you want, Hisana?" His question kept her in the doorway. With an effort, she looked away:

"Like I said: to be better, braver, kinder. Less hateful" –

"Hisana" –

"Don't pity me!"

"It's hard to be the person who fights for what they believe in. Byakuya took a great risk in bringing you back from Rukongai. He risked his honour as well as the dangers he must have faced in finding you."

"Do you think this is making me feel better?" she turned and, this time, Ukitake followed her back into the richly furnished room where she had opened one of the cupboards and was staring at the clothes.

"I'm not telling you this to make you feel better. Or worse, for that matter. I'm telling you this because, if you know Byakuya, then you know how much his honour means to him. You know that he would kill to defend it. So the man who would risk everything because he has fallen in love with the wrong woman – well, that's not the kind of man that Byakuya is." Very slowly, she turned towards him, her eyes a deep cobalt blue in the firelight: "What I'm saying, Hisana, is that you don't have to be the right kind of person. We don't have to be strong or brave or even kind all of the time. But at the right time – so long as we can be all of those things at the right time."

"But I've already messed this up so much," she said quietly.

"You may be right," he said with a sigh. She fell silent. He padded over to the doorway: "Well then, that being the case, I shall go and find some suitable clothes for you, my Lady." And, with a bow, he left. She sat down by the hearth, wondering if she would cry again, but the tears wouldn't seem to come. After a few minutes, Ukitake returned: "There you go." He laid out the clothes in front of her. She stared:

"What are these for?"

"I thought you might want to come with us tonight. Perhaps it's the right time."

"Wha – what do you mean?" It was a uniform: a _juban, _kimono and _hakama. _All that was missing was the sword.

"Well, I can't allow you to travel with us in your current attire. We have certain standards."

"I can't wear this!"

"I think you'll find it fits you."

"But I'm not a _shinigami!"_

"No, you're not," he said, his expression becoming serious: "And your purpose will be a simple one. If there is any danger, any hazard, any possibility of injury, then you will leave that to us. You have one objective and that is to find Byakuya."

"But" –

"There's no trace of his spiritual pressure or that of the men who were with him. We know that much, so we cannot use our usual methods to track him."

"Then how could I possibly find him?"

"I don't know, Hisana. But you've found each other before. I'm willing to put a little faith in that."

Hisana reached out and touched the coarse fabric of the _shihakusho. _She couldn't. She knew she couldn't. And this was like some terrible joke. At any time now, the screen door would slide back and his comrades would fall inside in a heap, laughing at her. But he just stood there: yet another arrogant, beautiful captain: "Get changed quickly now. We don't have much time."


	5. Chapter 5

**To everyone who has faved and watched this story. THANK YOU!**

**The next part is called SCAVENGERS. I'll upload it now. If you can't find it, look on my profile page. As soon as this website re-allows internal links I will make sure that it is easier to navigate from story to story. Sorry for the inconvenience.**

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